


we have the real and true and sure

by seriola



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-30
Updated: 2010-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-18 12:46:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7315735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seriola/pseuds/seriola
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-series. Alice has met Jasper before. Now she meets him for the first time. (She's seen this happen. Hasn't she?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	we have the real and true and sure

Alice is hungry. Is! She clutches at that reality, _yes, that is real, that is now_ , though part of her still imagines her stomach growling as she thinks about her hunger. Which is impossible, has been impossible, will be impossible—no, she must focus. Not on the humans around her. On the cup of coffee in her hands, perhaps. It is solid, unchanging, its contents untouched despite the half-circle of lipstick prints on the rim from where she has pretended to drink. The cup has a future she cannot see, and it quiets her, that thought of possibility moving along its course of time, behind an opaque curtain: as things should be.

But then a waitress passes near her, floral perfume and hairspray, sweat and grease. Alice's mouth would water if it could. The smell of human over everything is hard to bear. She mustn't touch, must not rip at the thin layers of skin, rip rip rip, like tissue paper from a birthday present, so she can feed. _Will not_ , although she could. 

She must be patient. For herself, and for him. Jasper Hale who will be, if not the Jasper Whitlock who is. 

And _is_ , very close, almost there. Perhaps the sand of the Escalante still shifts under his feet. Perhaps he has already picked up the scent of human, has changed course toward the smell of life; the scent of food. The diner is the only building lighting up the sky for miles.

"I'm waiting for my boyfriend," she says, when one of the waitresses asks what she's doing here all alone, poor dear. She says it smiling, trying out the word. This is not prophecy, only imagination. It's what pretty girls like her would say, wearing dresses like these, drinking coffee with their red lipstick on like this, waiting in a diner by the side of the highway, just as she has been doing—isn't it?

The hot meat smell from the woman rises in delicious waves. Alice hides her nose in her coffee cup, still smiling.

A car passes, lighting up the road in a brief flash. Someone breaks a cup in the kitchen. She recognizes this, _is_ recognizing this. 

Alice is at the opened door before the abandoned coffee has time to slosh onto the table.

Jasper is elegant, golden hair tied back in a style that has not been popular for a few decades. His expression is nothing but animal hunger. It does not mar his beauty in the least: enhances it, rather. To risk coming here, he must not have fed for a very long time, but then she did nothing to discourage that course of events. 

Alice sees him kill the man in the nearest booth, watches him dispatch all the occupants of the diner with brisk efficiency, watches him feed and then leave the building, heading eastward before the sun is up, somewhere over the Oklahoma border. His eyes are still, always to be, the color of wine, newly spilled.

She blinks, and the image is gone. 

He's looking at her, appraising, the way that starved dogs do. Will he have to fight for this, she can almost see him thinking, although that has not ever been, is not, will never be her gift. 

Alice says, "Hello, Jasper," gravely, and a little shyly. She's seen a _possible_ future for them, but they aren't anything yet. And her ability to see doesn't prepare her for how to feel when the moment arrives. The nervous anticipation, unlike the visions, is new. "I've been waiting for you—I have been waiting a long time. Are you going to make me wait, still?"

This doesn't mean anything to him, but he still bows his head, an oddly clumsy and human gesture. "I'm sorry, ma'am," Jasper says. "I don't believe we've met." Wary, now. Alice cannot see his past, but she can see the marks on him from other vampires, their teeth cutting distinctive shapes on his hands, neck, face. 

"We're meeting now," she says, and holds out her hand, the way she's already seen herself do.

He waits; time passes, the ticking of the clock loud in her ears, but time does not _change_ , so she is not surprised, really, when she feels his cold fingers wrapping around her own, although surprise still comes at the happiness, unexpected and unasked for, that wells up inside her. They go outside under the dark sky, leaving the humans behind them whole and unaware. Another car goes past, and the headlights, for a moment, turn Jasper's eyes golden. It's strange but not unfamiliar, or won't be, soon.  



End file.
